


Hard Places

by jettiebettie



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Porn with Feelings, Rimming, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 05:46:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4379564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jettiebettie/pseuds/jettiebettie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhys was kidnapped a few hours ago, but he’s fine. Totally fine. Would be fine if the man he’s in lust with would go the fuck away and stop messing with his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard Places

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oldmanrenkas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldmanrenkas/gifts).



> Maybe one day I'll actually write something of substance for this fandom. 
> 
> One day.

He’s in Medical for a lot longer than he anticipated. None of his injuries are serious; a split lip, a bruise here and there, a blood vessel in his eye might have burst, but other than that, it’s not like he was close to death.

You wouldn’t know it from the way the doctors are behaving. Doctors. Plural. Three of them circling him until the headache from his black eye starts to morph into a migraine. They look nervous, checking and rechecking his cybernetics and various scratches, going over his x-rays and unnecessary blood tests. He’s given up telling them that he’s fine, because it hasn’t gotten him anywhere for the past three hours, which included a lot of poking and prodding, a decontamination shower, and a brain scan for some reason. By the time they let him leave, Rhys is beyond exhausted, so much so that when he rests his eyes in the elevator for a moment- just for a second- he’s suddenly jostled when it comes to a stop, the five minute transit to the residential sector seemingly taking seconds. It’s just a short walk to his apartment, but he’s still reluctant to start walking.

It’s probably a testament to how tired he is that he doesn’t notice the light on inside. He jumps in the middle of pulling off his shoes when he suddenly hears, “Ah, there he is!” Rhys wonders if it’s because he was kidnapped not 48 hours ago that he’s still so flinchy, but he blinks owlishly into the living room. Handsome Jack is sitting there, boots crossed on the coffee table looking as if he owned the place (which… okay sure), right across from a stiff and very nervous looking Vaughn.

“H-hi…” Rhys says slowly, looking between them. What was even happening right now? Jack sits up planting his feet heavily on the floor, the sudden movement and sound causing Vaughn to jump slightly.

“I was just telling your pal here how I single-handedly rescued the damsel in distress from the bad guys today.” Rhys doesn’t think an army of loader bots at his back counts as  _single-handed_ , but he’s not willing to argue. Neither is Vaughn, apparently, despite a brief look that said he was clearly unimpressed and disbelieving.

“So there I was, yeah?” Jack says to Vaughn, as if carrying on a story. “The bandit leader spouting demands left and right-  _get out of our settlement, cease the mining, stop shooting our children, weh weh weh or we’ll kill this guy_ -” Jack flippantly points to where Rhys is still standing by the door. “And just when he’s about finish his big speech on the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of, I don’t know, skin mags or something, I shoot him right in the goddamn nose! I mean just-” He makes an explosion with his hands in front of his face. “-bone and cartilage, everywhere! Haha!” Jack slaps his knee as he laughs, oblivious to or uncaring of the way the color drains from Vaughn’s face.

“And brains,” Rhys says absently, grimacing when he can’t stop that moment from replaying in his head.

“Yeah, yeah!” Jack agrees with enthusiasm. If anything, Vaughn looks even worse than he did a few seconds ago. “Well.” Jack says as he stands. “This has been fun, but now Rhysie needs to explain to me how he let a simple supervision job go to shit so quickly, so you know.” Jack looks pointedly at Vaughn before nodding to the front door. Confused, Rhys and Vaughn look at each other. “Jesus Christ, just go. Get out. Take your weirdly ripped torso on a run or something, I don’t care. Classified business and all that jazz.”

“Yvette did want me to treat her to take out tonight, so…” Vaughn lies, clearly happy to have any reason to be on the other side of Helios in relation to Handsome Jack. “Glad you’re okay, bro,” he says with an apologetic smile. Rhys gives him a strained one back, knowing he’ll have to wait until tomorrow to spill about everything that happened to him to Vaughn and Yvette. The front door closes heavily behind him and Rhys can feel his heart slowly sink into his stomach as silence stretches throughout the apartment. The feeling worsens when he chances a glance over to Jack and sees the man staring intensely at him.

“So, uh. Couldn’t this have waited until morning?” he asks cautiously. “I mean you did just… wipe out an entire town today. You must be… tired.” Rhys’ voice trails as Jack begins tapping his foot. Sighing, Rhys steps forward until he’s just within an arm’s length of Jack. Immediately a hand grabs his chin, roughly turning his head this way and that.

“I send you down there to check things out and you get yourself nabbed the first day. I’ll tell you something, kiddo, that level of incompetence takes actual skill,” Jack says, his voice strangely even. Rhys is pretty sure his face turns a little red, embarrassment and irritation rising.

“I told you it was a bad idea,” he mumbles. “The locals were already too agitated for Hyperion to be-” he stops himself because throwing  _I-told-you-so_ ’s at your boss after he’s saved your ass is probably also a bad idea. Surprisingly Jack doesn’t say anything, just continues to poke around the tender skin of Rhys’ black eye. Rhys makes a half-assed attempt to stop him by reaching up to cautiously wrap his fingers around Jack's wrist. Jack frowns but lets his hand fall nonetheless. Rhys breathes a shallow sigh of relief from the break in contact before letting out an embarrassing squeak when Jack suddenly pulls up the front of the standard Hyperion shirt Medical gave him. "H-hey!"

"Did they wreck anything other than your stupid face? You deserved maybe a kick to the ribs for letting that one guy take your stun baton," Jack says, head cocked to get a better look at Rhys' stomach. Rhys forces his shirt down, his face turning a bright red as he takes a step back.

"I'm fine!" he almost shouts. "That's what I've been saying since you rescued-" Rhys cuts himself off again, fingers tightening around the hem of the shirt. Jack quirks an eyebrow at him and all Rhys can do is wince and rub a hand over his face. "Look, you... maybe you shouldn't be here."

"I'm sorry, princess, what was that? Because it sounded a lot like the ungrateful nonsense of a soon to be fired PA."

"I'm not ungrateful," Rhys mutters, refusing to look Jack in the eye. He's not worried about his job. Jack has threatened to fire him at least once a week since he gave Rhys the position. No, he's not worried about that. "But you can't... Jack, you can't  _do_  things like that. Anyone from your security team could have come to get me, but no,  _you_  showed up instead."

"Uh, yeah, genius. That's what heroes do; they save the day. In person," Jack says, crossing his arms. "Well, you know, on occasion. The guys down in the barracks get antsy when you keep 'em on the sidelines too long." Rhys pinches the bridge of his nose and tries not to sigh again.

“That's not-" He groans instead. "I'm saying you have to stop making me think things that aren't true!" He waits for the backlash, but Jack just stares at him confused.

Rhys contemplates just dropping it, plead temporary post-kidnapping insanity and hope for leniency. But he's so goddamn tired- of this, this weird negative space that he and Jack are in, or that he imagines they're in, because that's all this is. His imagination. Everything is, from the way Jack's hand will rest too long on the back of his neck, to the languid glances during board meetings; everyday things that Rhys' head blows out of proportion and files away in the guilty part of his brain. So he pushes on, speaking slowly and praying it doesn't get him spaced.

"I've tried very hard," he starts, "not to let my delusions get the better of me. Because I know- I know!- none of this actually means anything. Bringing me back, waiting in my apartment. I don't know what you're doing, but I know what it  _feels_  like, and I know that I'm wrong. Do you get how crazy it's making me?"

"Considering you're making not one goddamn lick'a sense? Yeah, crazy. Got it." Jack holds his hands up in mock peace, and Rhys is about ready to pull out his own hair. Maybe Jack's too.

"Oh my god, just stop making me think I mean something to you when I don't!" He does shout that time, frustrated and bizarrely high pitched. The realization on Jack's face is timed perfectly with the way the floor feels like it's falling away under Rhys' feet.

He's done plenty of things to humiliate himself in the past, but this? This takes the cake.

"Okay. Great. Good talk. Hope it never happens again." Rhys stiffly moves to open the door like a good host. "I'll see you bright and early tomorrow if I don't kill myself first-" A hand shoot over his shoulder to slam the door shut. Rhys jumps and then holds himself statue still, body ready for any sort of retaliation. As such, he's mostly prepared when he's turned around and roughly shoved up against the door. Chancing a glance up, Rhys isn't surprised that Jack looks angry. What surprises him is how  _righteously_  angry he looks.

"Let's get one thing straight, kiddo," Jack says, voice low and threatening. "I don't just skip into towns and blow them to kingdom come  _in person_  as some weak-ass dominance display. That I can do from the comfort of my chair. In my office." He leans in close to put his mouth by Rhys' ear. "I turned this space station into a goddamn circus when that bandit transmission came in. Scrabbling troops, arming loaders. I wiped out a potential work force on that shithole of a planet. All to keep your scrawny ass alive.” The hand over Rhys' shoulder moves to his neck, fingers wrapping around firmly. “Tell me again how all of that means  _nothing_."

Rhys doesn't even really know what to say to him, so it's actually to his advantage when Jack crashes their mouths together. Startled, his hands come up to grip Jack's shoulders as he's immediately overpowered, trying desperately to keep up with the pace of the tongue pushing against his own. The wet slide of it, matched with biting, pulling teeth makes his head spin. The ground is opening under his feet again, he's sure of it., or it could be because it's getting difficult to breathe. He moans, bringing his hands up slide into Jack's hair and hold him there, as if afraid this could just be another night giving into wet dreams. But there's a persistent knee between his legs and a sharp pull of teeth at his injured lip, that bright and sudden taste of blood bringing him back to reality.

“Wha-”

A hand is shoved under his shirt, lifting it again as it trails from his stomach up to his chest. Jack backs off for just a moment to pull it over Rhys' head and Rhys is in no state to stop him, doesn't even really want to. In fact, that insistent mouth at his neck is practically asking him to do the same, his hands starting to work loose Jack's many layers. Jack helps him, mouth still sucking a bruise under his jaw but arms moving to rip off his coat as Rhys undoes the buttons of his vest.

When Jack's belt drops to the floor it's like some twisted line of no return is drawn.

Rhys shakes his head anyway, trying to regain some semblance of clarity, but it's hard when Jack's hand is hot and heavy over his crotch, gripping lightly. The whimper that escapes Rhys' throat isn't particularly attractive, but it seems to spur Jack on nonetheless, the hand moving to slip into the waist of his pants.

“Jack-!”

“Shut up,” Jack tells him. He uses his other hand to grip Rhys' chin again, thumb playing with his bottom lip. “Not ungrateful, he says,” Jack mutters to himself. His grip tightens. “Prove it.”

Two large fingers are shoved into Rhys' mouth, startling him. He almost gags, but they press against his tongue and he can't help but move with them, teeth grazing knuckles and saliva building. He lets his eyes fall shut, lulled by the push and pull, and cries out around them when Jack squeezes his erection.

“That's right,” Jack breathes against his too hot cheek. “The hero should always get a reward for saving the damsel, don'tcha think?” Rhys nods, the motion pushing Jack's fingers just a little further in. “'Course he should. Where's my reward, kitten?” As if by some trained response, Rhys  immediately pushed down his pants, moaning when Jack's hand moves from his dick to grip his bared ass. The fingers are pulled out of his mouth and Jack's body pushes him more firmly against the door, his spit soaked fingers moving to where his other hand is now holding him open.

The first press of those fingers has him harshly sucking in a breath. His head falls to Jack's shoulder as he tries to relax and breathe steadily. It's easier than it should be. His mind is whirling at a ridiculous speed, making him dizzy, feeling too big for his skin as Jack's fingers work into him. He's dizzy enough that it's easy to distract himself by tonging that shoulder, letting his teeth and lips drag across salty skin, kissing along it until he's at Jack's throat as he lifts a leg to settle against Jack's hip. He rakes his fingers through Jack's hair, holding on as he's worked open, his hole becoming loose and his body more pliable. He hears a strangled moan that doesn't belong to him, feels the vibration of it against his mouth.

Suddenly the fingers are gone and large hands are once again manhandling him, turning him around and shoving him face first into the door. There's a strong grip at his hips, pulling them back against Jack's as he pushes his own pants down. The hot, dripping erection that rubs against him does nothing to help Rhys' fogged state of mind.

When Jack guides himself in, Rhys' forehead makes loud contact with the metal he's pressed against. Whatever, it's all he can do right now to keep from fucking himself onto Jack's cock and actually, he reasons, why would that be such a bad idea? They both cry out when he pushed himself back, Jack fully seated inside, his grip taking a turn for the painful. Again, Rhys thinks, and it's  _all_  he can think. Again, again,  _again_ -

Jack suddenly rams into him, a bolt of pleasure/pain that has Rhys seeing stars, but he doesn't stop his momentum, instead using it to push Rhys more fully into the door. Rhys hisses when his dick hits the cold surface, but then Jack is lifting one of his legs and going deeper and it's all Rhys can do to hold on. He has no leverage in this position, can only take what Jack give him, which is the fucking of his goddamn life.

“Jack! Jack, please-” Rhys' fingers scramble to try and find purchase against the door, something to grip, something to keep him grounded. But Jack merely grunts behind him, picking up his pace until all that Rhys can hear is the obscene slap of their skin and the occasional sound of Rhys' knee hitting the door.

He comes hard and untouched, the hot press of Jack's chest pinning him being the only thing that keeps him from completely falling apart, even though that feels like exactly what's happening. It's worse because Jack isn't done with him, his thrusts causing the lingering heat in Rhys' body to burn too bright.

“Please,” he tries again, but god only knows what he's asking. For more, for it to stop. He moves his left hand back behind him, his palm pressing into Jack's sweaty torso and moaning when he feels muscle move underneath skin with every thrust. Those muscles pull taunt when Jack finally finishes, shuddering as he comes inside of Rhys. It's unfortunate, but Rhys expects it when Jack pulls out.

He's not expecting to be thrown to the ground.

His legs never even stood a chance of catching him, so he lands ass first on the floor with an indignant squawk. With the impact he feels semen begin to leak out of him and his face turns an even deeper red when he tries to close his legs.

“Ah, ah, cupcake,” Jack's strained voice says above him. Rhys is a second away from yelling angrily at him when he sees the state he's in. Jack looks fucking wrecked, hair a mess and pants hanging loosely below his hips, sweat covered and with a flush everywhere except his mask. Rhys' legs fall open with a whimper slipping from his mouth. Jack smirks down at him before dropping to his knees, his tongue shooting out to lick his lips. Hands grip the backs of Rhys' thighs and suddenly he's bent nearly in half, his weight being forced onto his shoulders.

“Ow! Wait, what are you-”

The tongue at his overworked hole causes him to make a sound he's not proud of. He throws a hand over his mouth, writhing as Jack's tongue pushes in, wetly swirling around the come already inside him. The muscles in Rhys' stomach clench almost painfully. His dick twitches with interest, but he just came, damnit, and this is way,  _way_  too much. Rhys places a hand on Jack's head to try and push him off, but all he ends up doing his gripping his hair tightly when Jack nips at him.

“Ah! God...”

“Jack is fine, sweetheart.”

That might have been smooth if not for the slurping Rhys hears between his legs. He groans, throwing his arms across his eyes as he tries to disappear into the floor. Jack stays down there a while, cleaning him up and even licking the creases near his thighs and biting a particularly fleshy part. Rhys moans and squirms, but stays hidden behind his arms until Jack lets his legs down and crawls up his body. Cautiously, Rhys peaks out only for Jack to pull his arms up above his head and lean down to kiss him. The taste of Jack on his mouth and his tongue is almost enough to kill him, certainly enough to shut down his higher brain functions for a moment.

“Make me come after you again, babe, and there'll be hell to pay,” Jack purrs against his mouth. Rhys stiffens and panics a little, wondering if Jack was talking about the kidnapping or the...

Nodding furiously, he decides that, either way, he's not willing to test the man.

“Atta boy,” Jack says and Rhys lets the praise sink into him. It's something he's allowed now after all, not just in his head or wishful thinking. He can handle this change in their negative space, he thinks. Maybe. Possibly.

He hopes.

**Author's Note:**

> I was told to write rimming fic. I instead wrote a fic with rimming kind of in it. I am worthless.  
> Also barely beta'd. I'm so fucking sleepy.
> 
> (Did you know you can find me on tumblr at jettiebettie.tumblr.com? It's true.)


End file.
